


Controller

by BlameMyMuses



Category: Animorphs, Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:59:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2010138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert is a prisoner in his own head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Controller

Your name is John Egbert. You're seventeen years old, and you live in Washington. You have a few very good friends, and you would do anything to protect them. Anything. You'd keep their identities secret to your grave and back...

 

Except it's too late. There's no point in not telling your last name, or theirs, or where you live, or what grade you're in. It's too late, and _they_ know it all already.

 

It's the end of the world, and you've handed Earth to the enemy on a silver platter.

 

***

 

When your eyes open your first instinct is to cry in relief. You're chained to the wall in what looks like a storage unit of some sort. Dave is leaning against the opposite wall, staring at you like you're the absolute scum of the earth.

 

You are _so_ relieved, and _so_ scared, because you know what he's capable of—it's one of the only memories that is still yours and yours alone.

 

“Dave?” Your traitor mouth speaks without your permission, as it's done for the past four weeks, and Dave's eyebrows dip ever lower behind the wall of his shades. “What's going on? What's this all about?”

 

“How long?” he asks, his voice like ice. Inside the prison of your mind, you cheer. Your captor stamps down on you. 

 

“Dave, I don't know what you're talking about? How long _what_?”

 

“How long have you been inside his _head_?”

 

Panic. Not yours. The beginning of hopelessness and despair. Not yours. You are giddy. Your captor is so shaken that for a moment you  _almost_ have control of your left hand. You've been waiting, endlessly feeling for a chink in the slug's perfect control. The middle finger twitches violently enough to rattle the chains on your wrist. 

 

Dave sees. Of course he does. His smile is cold and satisfied. “Good to see you're still in there, John. Hang in there. Three days, and you'll be your own self again.”

 

It's overwhelming. You'd cry if you just had control of your own tear ducts. 

 

Instead, your lip curls into a snarl, your eyes narrow behind your glasses, and the slimy alien slug in your head clenches back down on your fists. They're his again,  _you're_ his again, but not for much longer. He'd starve to death inside your skull, and you'd be  _free_ again.

 

Holy shit do you miss being  _free_ .

 

You've been trapped inside your own head for a month, unable to so much as blink for yourself, or scratch an itch— _you_ , who were God of Wind and Shade, who flew beyond universes, who stepped beyond the Fourth Wall. It is awful. It is lonely and terrifying, because he's  _so good at being you_ . Even your dad didn't notice. It took even your best friends in the universe (all the universes) four long, agonizing weeks to realize. And all that time, you've been pinned like a butterfly to the inside of your own head, unable to even beg for help. 

 

You've had to settle for trying to drive the Yeerk—because that's what the extraterrestrial maggot currently taking up residence in the crevices of your brain is called—batshit insane. You've been singing “How Do I Live?” again and again. And again. And again. You'd like to think that your captor is more than a little bit sick of you at this point. 

 

“You won't get away with this,” your lips snarled, your tongue spat. 

 

Dave shrugged. “S' not gonna matter to you for much longer, dude. In three days or less we'll have our good old John back, and you'll be just so much slime trickling from his ear.”

 

_Less_ , your captor thought, and it was shaky and bitter. You wanted so desperately to smile, because you knew. You  _knew_ exactly how long it had been since the last time your slug visited the Kandrona pool. You treasured those fleeting moments of freedom while your Yeerk fed and swam. They'd kept you sedated after the first time, after the disaster you'd made. It was a blessing that none of them seemed able to recall how the mess had happened, beyond who had caused it, but it was a last boon from the Game, that none but the players could keep it in their mind for much more than a handful of minutes. You used memories of Sburb like an asylum inside your own head, because the Yeerk couldn't follow you into those thoughts. They were yours and yours alone. They had grown from something you'd found traumatizing into a private sanctuary.

 

***  
  
It took two days and four hours, and you spent every minute of it cheerfully reciting Con Air from start to finish on repeat. Your friends take turns sitting with you while you wait for your enslavement to end, Rose with her knitting needles, Roxy and Jane both with books, Jade playing Solitaire (and not really looking at you—more than anyone else, she and Jane have reason to fear being made into Controllers, and you don't blame her for being afraid to meet your eyes), Jake kept disassembling and cleaning his gun, and Dirk tinkered with robots. You'd missed them. They'd been right there next to you, fellow Survivors, fellow Winners, and you'd been screaming at them to save you and no one had heard.

 

But now...

 

There was a little shivery sensation like a gasp, the Yeerk fluttered briefly, fighting to cling a little longer, and then it let go.

 

You move your fingers. You blinked your eyes. A faint draft squeezed into the stuffy storage unit and for the first time in weeks you can feel it properly against your skin— _your_ skin, oh god!

 

First one tear, then another, until you're staring through wavering eyes at your own hands, and they really are  _yours_ again, and you can play the  _piano_ again, or brush your own hair, or decide when to clean your glasses. You'll get to pick out which shirt you want to wear, and decide whether or not to do your homework and—

 

“...John?” 

 

Dave's standing just beyond reach, and Jade and Rose are in the doorway, all watching you with what can only be called trepidation. 

 

You beam up at them, still crying. 

 

“Hey, guys!” you say, voice shaky and stuttering as you get used to using your own mouth again. “It's me— _really_ me! And, oh man, I have some totally great news I picked up while in Yeerk land!”

 

They're smiling now, and coming closer, and happy reunions are great and all, but you really do have news you've been wanting to tell them for ages—since about the second day you were made into a Host, actually. 

 

“Go on, John,” said Rose, leaning in to unlock the shackles from his wrists. 

 

“You probably know how the Yeerks have been using Troll hosts? Well, turns out there's a certain resistance group of former Troll-controllers. You get three guesses as to who's in charge.”

 

Your friends were smart. They only needed one.

 

“ _Karkat_.”

 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this a teaser for what I'm probably doing this NaNoWriMo...


End file.
